In 1945, several dozen American conscientious objectors volunteered to starve themselves under medical supervision. The goal was to learn how health might be restored after World War II to the wasted populations of Europe. What the volunteers endured-and what broke them-sheds light on the scourge of starvation that today afflicts some 800 million people worldwide.
Human beings evolved for a bad day of hunting, a bad week of hunting, a bad crop, a bad year of crops. We were hungry even in that first Garden of Eden, what some anthropologists call the “Paleoterrific,” a world full of large animals and relatively few people. Paleolithic bones and teeth occasionally show unnatural pauses in growth, a sign of food shortage. Our diet didn’t get better as our population grew and the big-game species died out. In the Mesolithic, we foraged more intensively for plants and hunted smaller game with new tools like nets and snares. In the Neolithic, we invented agriculture, which sparked the rise of cities. There is no evidence that any of these changes reduced the odds of starvation or malnutrition. A more common trend seems to be that small-game hunters were shorter and less nourished than their Paleolithic ancestors, farmers less healthy than hunters and gatherers, and city dwellers less robust than farmers. We just kept getting hungrier.
Hunger is a country we enter every day, like a commuter across a friendly border. We wake up hungry. We endure that for a matter of minutes before we break our fast. Later we may skip lunch and miss dinner. We may not eat for religious reasons. We may not eat before surgery. We may go on a threeday fast to cleanse ourselves of toxins and boredom. We may go on a longer fast to imitate Christ in the desert or to lose weight. We may go on a hunger strike. If we are lost at sea, if we have lost our job, if we are at war, we may not be hungry by choice.
At the end of World War II, as occupied towns were liberated and prisoners released from concentration camps, the Allies faced the task of refeeding people who had been starving for months and even years. The English officer Jack Drummond remembered a cold day in January 1945 when he met with a group of Dutch, American, and British public health advisers: “It was frightening to realize how little any of us knew about severe starvation. In our lifetime millions of our fellow men had died in terrible famines, in China, in India, in the U.S.S.R., without these tragedies having yielded more than a few grains of knowledge of how best to deal with such situations on a scientific basis.”
Test volunteers at the University of Minnesota were monitored to gauge the effects of starvation. This tilting table allowed doctors to see how the circulatory system adjusts to sudden changes.
For a long time, scientists in America had lobbied for more research on famine relief. The government was interested but was preoccupied with winning the war. In 1944, a group of private citizens at the University of Minnesota’s Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene began what would be called the Minnesota Experiment, the first long-term controlled study on the effects of semi-starvation. The project was headed by Dr. Ancel Keys, director of the lab, who had just developed K rations for the army. Funding sources included pacifist groups like the American Society of Friends and the Brethren Service Committee. The volunteers were conscientious objectors, Quakers and Mennonites eager to participate in work that meant, according to the scientists, “a long period of discomfort, severe restriction of personal freedom, and some real hazard.”
The study began in November with a three-month control period, followed by six months of semi-starvation, followed by three months of refeeding. The goal for each subject was to lose 24 percent of body weight, mimicking the weight loss seen in famine. (Autopsies done in the Warsaw ghetto showed that death from starvation involved a loss of 30 to 50 percent of body weight.) The diet was one a Warsaw Jew would recognize: brown bread, potatoes, cereals, turnips, and cabbage, with occasional tastes of meat, butter, and sugar. Nothing like this had ever been done before or would ever be done again.
“It undressed us,” concluded one subject. “Those who we thought would be strong were weak; those who we surely thought would take a beating held up best. … I am proud of what I did. My protruding ribs were my battle scars. . . . It was something great, something incomprehensible.”
The results of the Minnesota Experiment were published in 1950 in the two-volume epic The Biology of Human Starvation, more than 1,300 pages long, heavy as a sack of flour. Up to the last moment before publication, the authors included the newest research appearing in various languages. The hunger disease studies of the Warsaw ghetto, still our most detailed portrait of extreme starvation, had been published in French in 1946. Doctors from a Belgian prison and a French mental hospital had written up their observations on inmates who had had their daily calories reduced to between 1,500 and 1,800 during the war. The 1941-42 siege of Leningrad, in which the Germans successfully prevented food from entering the city for over nine months, resulted in a number of scientific papers. The report of the Dutch government on the 1944-45 famine in the western Netherlands came out in 1948. There were monographs on refeeding from places like Dachau, and field data had been gathered from the Japanese internment camps. World War II turned out to be a cornucopia of starvation research -a wealth of hunger.
It wasn’t easy being a conscientious objector during the Good War. Sixteen million Americans answered the call to defend the world against Nazism and Fascism. Forty-two thousand men decided that their religious or moral beliefs prevented them from killing another human being, under any circumstances. Six thousand conscientious objectors ended up in jail for refusing to register for the draft or cooperate with federal laws; 25,000 served as noncombatants in the armed forces; and 12,000 entered the Civilian Public Service, where they worked as laborers, firefighters, and aides in mental hospitals. As the war continued, these conscientious objectors grew increasingly restive. In an oral history compiled later, one man complained, “My God, yon’re talking about planting trees and tbe world’s on fire!” Another remembered, “This is what finally got under my skin more than anything else: the sense of not sharing the fate of one’s generation but of sort of coasting alongside all of that; you couldn’t feel you were part of anything terribly significant in what you were doing.”
Partly out of the desire to share the fate of their generation, conscientious objectors became medical guinea pigs. They wore lice- infested underwear in order to test insecticide sprays and powders. They were deliberately infected with typhus and malaria and pneumonia. They ingested feces as part of a hepatitis study. They were put in decompression chambers that simulated altitudes of 20,000 feet. They lived in rooms where the temperatures dropped to below freezing-a month at 20 degrees, a month at zero degrees. They were willingly too hot, too cold, anemic, jaundiced, feverish, itchy. When Dr. Keys at the University of Minnesota sent out a recruiting pamphlet titled “Will You Starve That They Be Better Fed?” to various Civilian Public Service camps, where thousands of conscientious objectors served during the war. More than 100 men volunteered. About half were rejected. Thirty-six were chosen as subjects for the experiment, and another 18 as assistants and staff.
All the men had to be in good health, physically and mentally. They had to have considerable social skills and be able to get along with others in a situation that would test everyone’s limits. They had to be interested in relief work and rehabilitation. The men finally selected ranged in age from 20 to 33. All were white, with at least a year of college education. Eighteen already had college degrees. They had a variety of body types, and they came from a variety of economic backgrounds, rich, poor, and middle-class.
Being a guinea pig was a full-time, 48-hour-a-week job. The men lived on the upper floor of the Minnesota laboratory in dormitory- style bedrooms, with a nearby lounge, library, and classrooms. They were free to come and go as they pleased. They worked 15 hours a week doing laundry or clerical work, cleaning in the lab, or helping in the kitchen. They attended 25 hours a week of classes in political science and foreign languages as preparation for going overseas in relief work. They were free to attend other classes at the university, and one subject completed his master’s degree during the experiment. Many of them joined local churches and other organizations. They were also required to walk 22 miles a week, outdoors at their own pace, and another half-hour a week on the treadmill. Each day, they walked two miles to get their meals from a university dining hall. During the control period and for the beginning months of semi-starvation, most chose to participate in activities such as ice skating andfolk dancing. In addition, they spent hours being examined physically and psychologically- testing math skills, memory retention, and hearing range and giving interminable samples of blood, urine, stool, saliva, skin, sperm, and bone marrow.
For the first three months, the men ate an average of 3,500 calories a day, normal American fare, with 3.9 ounces of protein, 4.3 ounces of fat, and 17 ounces of carbohydrates. Each subject was to achieve his ideal weight by the end of the 12 weeks. Those who were too heavy got fewer calories; those who were too thin got more. As a group, the men ended this period slightly below their desired weight.
For the next six months, only two daily meals were served, at 8:30 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. Three menus were rotated, a monotonous diet of potatoes and whole-wheat bread, cereal and cabbage, and turnips and rutabagas. On rare occasions, there were small portions of meat, sugar, milk, or butter. Daily calories averaged 1,570, with 1.7 ounces of protein and 1.0 ounce of fat. Individual body types had to be considered. Slighter, thinner men were expected to lose only 19 percent of their body weight and heavier men as much as 28 percent, with the goal being a group average of 24 percent. Daily and weekly adjustments in food were based on how well a man was achieving his predicted weight loss. If he was losing too much, he got extra potatoes and bread. If he was not losing enough, he got less.
Jim Graham was an idealistic 22-year-old who had been planting trees and fighting forest fires before he joined the experiment. At that time, at 6′ 2″, he weighed 175 pounds. “In the beginning,” he remembered for an interview over 30 years later, “this was a rather interesting experience. We were losing weight, of course, but we still had a fair amount of energy.”
Most of the men felt the same way, at least at first, although they complained of dizziness. Over the next few weeks, however, the experience became more painful.
The sensation of hunger increased; it never lessened. Eating habits began to change. The men became impatient waiting in line if the service was slow. They were possessive about their food. Some hunched over the trays, using their arms to protect their meals. Mostly they were silent, with the concentration that eating deserved. More and more men began to toy with their portions, mixing the items up, adding water, or “souping,” to make new concoctions. They were liberal with the salt and asked for more spices. Dislikes of certain foods, such as rutabagas, disappeared. All food was eaten to the last bite. Then the plates were licked.
Obsessions developed around cookbooks and menus from local restaurants. Some men could spend hours comparing the prices of fruits and vegetables from one newspaper to the next. Some planned now to go into agriculture. They dreamed of new careers as restaurant owners.
After five months of semi-starvation, conscientious objector Samuel Legg poses outside the university field house in July 1945. Over six months, Legg and the 35 other men in the experiment lost, on average, nearly a quarter of their body “weight.
After five months of semi-starvation, conscientious objector Samuel Legg poses outside the university field house in July 1945. Over six months, Legg and the 35 other men in the experiment lost, on average, nearly a quarter of their body weight.
One man had a harder time than the rest. Twenty-four years old, described as handsome, gregarious, and charming, he had seemed the perfect candidate. But in the first few weeks, he had disturbing dreams of “eating senile and insane people.” As early as the third week, his weight showed discrepancies; he wasn’t losing what he should be losing. One afternoon, in the eighth week of semi- starvation, his discipline broke down completely. Walking alone in town, he went into a shop and had an ice cream sundae, then another bowl of ice cream farther down the street, then a malted milk, then another. When he returned to the laboratory, he confessed. He felt awful. He had betrayed his own desire to “do service to a starving Europe and uphold the ideals of the Civilian Public Service program.”
In response, the Minnesota researchers initiated the buddy system. No subject was allowed to go outside the laboratory, about town, or around campus without a friend or staff member. The men themselves understood the need. Those working in the kitchen asked to be reassigned.
The erring subject still felt bad. In truth, he wanted to leave the experiment. But how could he admit that to himself and others? He violated his diet again, this time by stealing a few raw rutabagas. The writing in his daily journal was now an emotional swirl of ideas and prayers. He found some strength in God and decided to get a job in a grocery store to test himself. He couldn’t sleep. He shoplifted some trinkets he didn’t want. He rationalized his behavior to anyone who would listen, insisting that he was an individualist, that he wasn’t meant for this kind of regimentation, that the experiment was a failure, that he had already done his share. He asked for a buddy to supervise him constantly. He gave up his money and checkbook. Finally, he collapsed weeping, threatening suicide and violence to others. The researchers released him from the experiment and admitted him to the psychiatric ward of the university hospital. What they termed a borderline psychotic episode subsided after a few days.
Meanwhile, another young man, 25 years old, was having problems too. One night at a grocery store he ate two bananas, several cookies, and a sack of popcorn, all of which he vomited back up at the laboratory. He referred to the incident as a “mental blackout.” For the next few weeks, he seemed confident and recommitted; however, his weight failed to go down. Increasingly, he became restless and unhappy but would not admit to any secret eating. At last, he developed a urological problem and was released from the experiment. In retrospect, the researchers decided that the man had “hysterical characteristics and other signs of a neurotic temperament. In interviews he was good-natured and easygoing but showed signs of an immature Pollyanna attitude.” They noted that even’ other sentence in his journal ended with an exclamation point.
Eight weeks. Ten weeks. Twelve weeks. Sixteen weeks. Daily, the physical changes in the Minnesota volunteers became more dramatic. Prolonged hunger carves the body into what researchers call the asthenic build. The face grows thin, with pronounced cheekbones. Atrophied facial muscles may account for the “mask of famine,” a seemingly unemotional, apathetic stare. The scrawny neck is pitiful. The clavicle looks sharp as a blade. Broad shoulders shrink. Ribs are prominent. The scapula bones in the back move like wings. The vertebral column is a line of knobs. The knees are baggy, the legs like sticks. The fatty tissues of the buttocks disappear, and the skin hangs in folds. The men in the Minnesota laboratory now took a pillow with them everywhere they went, as sitting had become uncomfortable.
The skeletal framework, however, seemed unchanged, something the researchers carefully measured. Populations in Russia and Ukraine had reported a decrease in height during famine, but the Minnesota scientists found only an insignificant decline of 0.125 inches on average. They attributed a perceived larger decline to a weakening in muscle tone and posture. In five men, the researchers also measured the thickness of the spinal column’s intervertebral discs and saw a loss of an average of 0.04 inches. They speculated that changes in disk cartilage might be irreversible and could parallel the aging process.
“I felt like an old man,” Jim Graham said, “and probably looked like one since I made no effort to stand up straight.”
Edema complicated all kinds of measurements. Wrists and ankles might increase in circumference instead of decrease. Actual weight loss was obscured. The Minnesota scientists estimated that their subjects had as much as 14 pounds of extra fluid after six months of semistarvation. During refeeding, their height actually decreased as the swelling in their feet went down. Only four subjects showed no clinical signs of edema. Of the rest, many had fluid in their knee joints, which made walking painful. Jim Graham described how the men’s flesh bulged over the tops of their shoes at the end of the day, and how his face was puffy in the morning, deeply marked with the indentations of his pillow. The men may have worsened their edema by using extra salt, drinking countless cups of tea or coffee, and watering their food in an effort to make a meal last longer. All this was accompanied by frequent urination during the day and night.
Their kidney functions remained normal.
Their resting metabolism was reduced by 40 percent, which the researchers estimated to be a savings of 600 calories a day.
Their hearts got smaller. After six months, with body weights reduced by 24 percent, their hearts had shrunk by almost 17 percent. These hearts also beat slower -often very slowly -and more regularly. Blood pressure dropped, except in five men, for whom it did not, and in one man, for whom it rose. Their veins sometimes collapsed now when blood was being drawn. The ability of the heart to work in general – the amount of blood pumped, the speed of blood, the arterial blood pressure -declined 50 percent. Electrocardiograms also showed less voltage and electrical energy, along with changes that pointed to possible heart damage. The researchers concluded that although this was abnormal, it was not serious. Semi- starvation did not include signs of heart disease or cardiac failure. (This would not have been true if the diet were deficient in thiamine or had fewer calories for a longer period of time, as with some anorectics.)
The ability of the lungs to bring in air decreased by 30 percent.
The brain and central nervoussystem seemed remarkably resistant. A battery of tests showed little change in mental ability, although the men felt less intellectually active. They just didn’t care as much. They lost their will for academic problems and became far more interested in cookbooks.
Two men developed neurological symptoms, such as numbness or burning and tingling. One wrote that his right foot felt unhinged at the ankle. The doctors decided that these feelings were hysterical in origin. They found it pertinent that a subject’s numbness coincided with a new “numb” phase in his relationship with his ex- fiance, who had broken up with him during the experiment. “No feeling aroused at all,” the subject noted in his journal. “She might just as well have been any one of a dozen of other girls I know fairly well.”
Generally, the men lost strength and endurance. In their jobs around the laboratory, they saw the difference. “Lifting the mattress off the bed to tuck the blankets in is a real chore,” one man wrote, and “The carriers for the twelve urine bottles are a hell of a lot heavier than they used to be.” Even personal hygiene became difficult. “I notice the weakness in my arms when I wash my hair in the shower; they become completely fatigued in the course of this simple operation.” Or, “When the water in the showers becomes hot because of the flushing of the toilets, my reaction time in adjusting controls seems to be longer.” It was wearying to walk upstairs, to carry things, to open a bottle of ink. Their handwriting got worse. Dressing took a long time. And they were clumsy, dropping books and tripping over their feet.
Their performance on the treadmill became an embarrassment to them. By the end of six months, the runs often ended in collapse. The researchers noted that the subjects did not stop because of shortness of breath or discomfort in the chest, as a heart patient might. They did not stop because of pain or nausea. “They stopped primarily because they could no longer control the actions of their knees and ankles. They literally did not have the strength to pick up their feet fast enough to keep up with the treadmill.”
The men had no signs of vitamin deficiency, although the scientists emphasized how closely starvation can look like deficiency. During World War II, hungry populations in Europe did not generally suffer from beriberi, pellagra, scurvy, or rickets, perhaps due to their diet of vitaminrich foods, such as potatoes. But prisoners in Asia and the Pacific had a very different experience. They ate mostly polished rice, which lacks vitamin A, and they commonly had a tropical disease, such as malaria, which may have had a synergistic effect. These men often had serious neurological damage and eye problems.
A third of the Minnesota volunteers complained that their hair, which seemed dry and stiff, “unruly and staring,” was falling out. Their skin became scaly, a result of reduced blood flow. The area surrounding a hair follicle might turn hard and became elevated, giving them a goose flesh appearance and “nutmeg grater feel.” Nineteen men had a brownish pigmentation around their mouths and under their eyes, deeper than any suntan. For two of the subjects, their long-term acne cleared up. Whenever they worked in the sun or had reason to sweat, all of the men developed tiny pockets of skin filled with perspiration, hundreds of plugged sweat duct openings on their backs and shoulders.
Where not discolored, their skin was pale, with a distinctive grayishblue pallor. As the blood circulating through their systems became diluted with water, the proportion of red blood cells decreased by about 27 percent. The total amount of hemoglobin in their bodies decreased by 23 percent. In short, they were anemic.
They were also cold, even in that hot and humid July. Young men who had previously been fighting forest fires shivered in their beds under two or three woolen blankets. Their lips and nail beds turned blue. During the day, they wore jackets. Simultaneously, their tolerance for heat increased. They could hold hot plates easily and constantly begged for their food to be served at a higher temperature.
Their bone marrow lost healthy fat and had areas of “gelatinous degeneration.” Their eyesight remained normal. Their hearing improved. They had little tolerance for loud music and noisy conversation. They carried out their own discussions in quiet and subdued whispers.
Physically, the Minnesota volunteers now resembled the hungry populations of Europe. But there were important differences. The men living in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene did not suffer from the debilitating diarrhea so common in the Warsaw ghetto, in the concentration camps, and in most situations of famine and malnutrition. Nor did they experience much bloating, flatulence, or stomach pain. The researchers theorized that this was due to sanitation, the ready availability of soap and water, and “the fact that the food served was not adulterated with bark, grass, leaves, sawdust, or even dirt, as is often the case when food is scarce.”
Unlike the people of Warsaw, the Minnesota subjects did not show an increase in cavities or loss in bone density, both of which may require a longer period of starvation. The Minnesota Experiment itself did not reproduce the cold that Europeans experienced in World War II, the lack of fuel for cooking food and heating the house, the lack of warm clothes, the lack of shoes. It did not reproduce the fear, the knowledge that you might die at any time, that you might be humiliated or injured or tortured or killed. It did not reproduce the murder of a neighbor, the corpses in the street, the inexplicable loss of human decency. It did not reproduce the death of your son.
“Above all,” Jim Graham remembered, “we knew it would be over on a certain date.”
And yet, despite the safety and normalcy of the lab, despite the knowledge that their ordeal would end in three months and then two months and then two weeks, the Minnesota volunteers felt it was their minds and souls that changed more than anything else. In many ways, they hardly recognized themselves. The lively, friendly group that had bonded together for the first months was now dull and apathetic, unwilling to plan activities or make decisions. They were rude to visitors and spent most of their time alone. It was “too much trouble” and too tiring to be with other people. The scientists mourned the loss of “the even-temperedness, patience, and tolerance” of the control period. Now the men indulged in outbursts of temper and emotion. They sulked and brooded and dramatized their discomforts. Those who deteriorated the most, socially and personally, were the most scorned. One man in particular became the group’s scapegoat.
“We were no longer polite,” Jim Graham said.
On excursions into town, always with a buddy, the men sometimes went on shopping sprees, possessed by the desire to collect knickknacks, secondhand clothes, and miscellaneous junk. Afterward, they were puzzled and dismayed: Who would want these stacks of old books, this damaged coffeepot, this collection of spoons?
They were frequently depressed, although spells of elation could also come upon them suddenly, lasting a few hours to a few days. There was a “high” associated with the “quickening” effect of starvation and with the pride of successfully adapting to the diet. These high periods were followed by low ones, black moods, and feelings of discouragement.
Their behavior at the dinner table became more bizarre. While some men gulped down their meals like dogs at a food bowl, others lingered for hours, dawdling, noodling, stretching out the sensations.
Their sex drive diminished and then disappeared. “I have no more sexual feeling than a sick oyster,” one declared. Some of the men had been dating, and that simply stopped. A few had other relationships in progress, and these became strained. One man was surprised at the new awkwardness, since he had thought his “friendship” was based solely on intellectual interests. When they went out to movies, the love scenes bored them, nothing was funny, and only scenes with food held their interest. Like the monks of earlier centuries, they no longer worried about nocturnal emissions or the desire to masturbate. Physically, their testes were producing fewer male hormones, and their sperm were less mobile and fewer in number.
On tests that measured mental health, the scores that concerned hypochondria, depression, and hysteria rose significantly. There were also increases in scores having to do with delusions and schizophrenia. The researchers regarded these changes as a “diffuse psychoneurosis.” Their subjects had clearly become neurotic, a phenomenon that would reverse during refeeding. The symptoms of starvation neurosis were irritability, asociability, depression, nervousness, and emotional instability.
For the men who completed the experiment, there was no change in the area of psychosis-psychopathic behavior, paranoia, and hypomania (elevated moods or grandiosity). This was not true, however, for three of the four men who did not complete the experiment. Moreover, three out of 36 men chosen for their outstanding health and character would suffer some form of mental breakdown under the stress of hunger.
On May 26, 1945, about halfway through semi-starvation, a relief dinner was organized. One meal of 2,300 calories was served. The men helped select the menu: roasted chicken and dressing, potatoes and gravy, strawberry shortcake. That night, the protein in the chicken triggered excessive water loss. Everyone got up even more than usual to urinate. The next day they discovered they had each lost several pounds.
After weeks of semi-starvation, subjects’ eating habits began to change. The men toyed with their food and added water to make new concoctions, and their dislikes for certain foods disappeared.
Soon another subject was showing s\igns of distress. As early as the fifth week of semi-starvation, his weight loss had not followed the expected curve, and he confessed to minor violations, such as stealing and eating crusts of bread. He began to chew up to 40 packs of gum a day, until his mouth was sore, and he was caught stealing gum he could no longer afford. Throughout June and July, this 25- year-old, described as a husky athlete, became increasingly nervous. He bought an old suit he didn’t need and later wailed, “Nobody in his right mind would do a thing like that.” He talked often of his compulsion to root through garbage cans. Later interviews would reveal he was doing just that, although at the time he didn’t confess to breaking the diet. Despite cuts in his daily calories, his weight failed to reach a loss of 24 percent, and he was released from the experiment. His neurotic behavior continued, with cycles of overeating and illness. At one point, he committed himself to the psychiatric ward of the university hospital but did not stay for treatment. In a meeting with the psychologists, he wept and kicked over a table. He couldn’t make simple decisions and was painfully disgusted with himself. The researchers believed optimistically that his problems would eventually subside.
This man had a close friend who followed a similar pattern, becoming addicted to gum chewing and failing to lose the prescribed weight. He also denied eating extra food and appeared extremely depressed. His data were not used in the research, although he remained at the laboratory. Another subject in these last few weeks of semi-starvation expressed the fear that he was going crazy. Yet another admitted how close he came to hitting a man over the head with his dinner tray.
By now, the education program at the laboratory had ended for lack of interest. There were no more seminars in foreign languages or relief work. Housekeeping chores were neglected. The working schedule of 15 hours a week had long since slipped into halfhearted efforts. Some regular exercise was still maintained; at least, the men continued to walk back and forth to the dining hall.
Six months had come to seem like an eternity, with each day stretching infinitely long. At last, July 29, 1945, arrived, the day that marked the end of semi-starvation and the beginning of the 12- week rehabilitation period. It was Graham’s 23rd birthday. The men felt like cheering. “Morale was high,” Jim Graham said. The worst was over.
In fact, it was not. The goal of the Minnesota Experiment had been to determine how to refeed a starving population with the most economical use of food, assuming that a minimum of resources would be available. In other words, what was the least you could give a starving man and still have him recover? The remaining 32 men were now randomly divided into four groups. One group, for the first six weeks, received an average of 400 more calories a day, the next group 800 more calories, the third group 1,200 more calories, and the last group 1,600 more calories. Those in the first group got about 2,000 daily calories and those in the highest about 3,000. These four groups were each further subdivided into two, with half receiving extra protein in the form of soybean powder added to their bread. The protein subgroups were divided again, with half receiving a vitamin supplement and the other half a placebo.
In all cases, the rehabilitation diet meant the same kind of food, just more of it. Surprisingly, that wasn’t a bad thing. “They warned us that the food would get monotonous,” Jim Graham remembered. “But it was far from monotonous. It was food, and any food tasted good. To this day, I find the tastiest food a simple boiled potato.”
In the first weeks of refeeding, a number of men started losing water and weight. Edema had masked their degree of starvation; now its reduction masked their degree of recovery. These men found the weight loss disturbing. Moreover, a very slow weight gain was seen in all the groups, especially in the men given fewer calories. By the sixth week, the first group had regained an insignificant 0.3 percent of the weight lost during semi-starvation. Essentially they looked much the same: skeletal, hollow cheeked, morose. The second group regained 9.1 percent of weight loss, the third group 11.1 percent, and the fourth group, getting as many as 3,000 calories a day, only 19.2 percent. Their blood sugar levels increased only slightly. Their blood pressure and pulse rates remained low. They still felt tired and depressed. They still had the sex drive of a sick oyster. They still had edema. They still had aches and pains. And they still felt hungry. Some felt even hungrier than before.
One 28-year-old had begun the experiment as a leader, but in the past six months, this “highly intelligent” and “engaging” personality had become one of the weakest and most aggravating members of the group. He spent hours making disgusting messes of his food, and his air of suffering irritated everyone. On the last day, July 28, he collapsed on the treadmill, which caused him to sob uncontrollably. For this subject, assigned to the group receiving the next-to-lowest calories, the letdown of refeeding was unbearable. At the end of the first week, while changing a tire, he allowed his automobile to slip the jack. One finger was almost torn off and required outpatient care at the university hospital. The man confessed he had deliberately attempted to mutilate himself but had lost his nerve at the last moment and done an incomplete job.
The next week, the young man visited a friend and went into the yard to chop wood for the fire, something he had done before. This time he also chopped off three of his fingers. During a five-day stay in the hospital, he explained, “When rehabilitation started, I was still hungry. It was really more starvation. … I was blue over the whole thing. I was in a weird frame of mind.” seemingly, his only option was to get out of the Civilian Public Service altogether. So “I decided to get rid of some fingers.”
The Minnesota researchers convinced the subject to stay in the experiment, and during his time in the hospital his calories remained at the prescribed level, although he received new kinds of food, such as fruit. He returned to the lab refreshed, ready to complete the refeeding stage. The scientists theorized that the extra care had substituted for the “mothering” his immature personality required. The subject now repressed the memory that his mutilation had been deliberate, arguing that his muscle strength and control had been weak or that the ax had hit a branch. He also developed an aversion to the psychology tests and to the psychologists at the experiment. This puzzled him.
By the end of the sixth week of refeeding, almost all the subjects were in active rebellion. Many “grew argumentative and negativistic.” Some questioned the value of the project, as well as the motives and competence of the researchers. A few admitted that their desire to help the relief effort had completely disappeared. At the same time, unnoticed by the subjects themselves, their energy was returning. They became more responsive, albeit in a negativistic way. They were annoyed at the restrictions still imposed on them. They rejected the buddy system, which was removed “in the face of imminent wholesale violation.” They resisted going back to a regular work schedule. At times, the experimenters felt they were watching “an overheated boiler, the capacity of the safety valves an unknown variable.”
Later, the researchers compared this with what they learned about refeeding camps after the war, where aid workers also noted a growing aggressiveness and surprising “lack of gratitude” in men and women who had previously been dull and apathetic with hunger.
Now all four groups got an average increase of another 800 calories and the supplemented group another 0.84 ounces of protein. Slowly, more slowly than expected, their hearts increased in size. The capacity of the lungs improved. The brown pigmentation of the skin began to fade, and the acne that had disappeared came back.
In another four weeks, everyone got an additional 259 calories and the protein group another boost. At the end of the experiment, those in the group with the least calories were eating an average of 3,000 a day and those in the group with the most as many as 4,000. Their weight gains were still only 21 percent of weight lost for the lowest group and 57 percent for the highest group. Most of the weight gain was in body fat, not muscle mass. The more calories a man got, the more fat and the greater percentage of fat he gained. The souping of meals, the excessive drinking of fluids and use of salt, and the obsessive interest in food continued. Table manners were shocking.
After three months of refeeding, the groups taking extra vitamins did not seem to have benefited in any way. Nor had the groups taking extra protein. The supplements did not help increase red blood cell count or metabolism. They did not help in the recovery of normal blood pressure and pulse rate or in the return of strength and endurance and general fitness. In fact, the men who did not receive protein supplements recovered their grip strength faster than those who did.
The men receiving extra calories did benefit. They gained weight faster. Their blood pressure, resting metabolism, strength, and endurance rose more quickly. Their fitness scores improved, and they were better able to do work. The rate of recovery for starvation neurosis, particularly depression and hysteria, was directly linked to how much food was in the new diet More calories made a man feel better physically and psychologically.
By now, the war was over. Germany had surrendered in May 1945 and Japan in August. Dr. Keys, director of the experiment, offered some preliminary advice in terms of what the scientists had learned about refeeding. The Al\lies needed to physically rehabilitate the starved people of Europe before talking to them about democracy. Giving these people extra vitamins or protein would not necessarily be helpful. And no real rehabilitation could take place on 2,000 calories a day; the proper diet was more like 4,000.
By the end of the experiment, almost one year after it had begun, the Minnesota volunteers were far from normal, but they were on their way. Their humor and social skills had somewhat returned, and they were looking forward to the future. Twelve subjects agreed to stay on at the laboratory for another eight weeks of testing. Now they were allowed to eat whatever they wanted. A few celebrated by consuming as many as 10,000 calories a day. Many had the sensation of being hungry even after they had just eaten a large meal; some would eat three lunches in a row. Others felt anxious that food would be taken away. Jim Graham carried candy bars and cookies in his pockets, so he would have something to eat whenever he wanted.
The glut of food seemed to overload the system. Most men had some new form of discomfort, from bloating and heartburn to shortness of breath and sleepiness. Five men still had swollen knees and feet, sometimes worse than before. Now the atrophie, weakened heart showed its vulnerability, not in semi-starvation but in rehabilitation. One subject, eating 7,000 to 10,000 calories a day for a week, had signs of cardiac failure-difficult breathing, a puffy face, pitting edema, and an enlarged heart. After bed rest, a reduced diet, and reduced salt intake, the symptoms disappeared.
Eventually, four months after the end of starvation, almost everyone had returned to a more moderate daily intake of 3,200 to 4,200 calories. They had all surpassed their pre-starvation weight, and the researchers commented that a “soft roundness became the dominant characteristic” of men who had entered the experiment lean and fit. By the end of five months, their sex drive had returned and their sperm were vigorous and motile. Their hearts were normal sized. Their lung capacities were normal. More than eight months later, the researchers were still monitoring 16 of the subjects. Most had no complaints except for shortness of breath. Most were overweight. Jim Graham had ballooned from his control weight of 175 to 225, and he would continue to gain. One man still felt physically lethargic. One still had some edema. Those who had complained of nervousness felt better. Their eating habits were close to acceptable.
The body is a circle of messages: communication, feedback, updates. Hunger and satiety are the most basic of these. Every day, we learn more about how this system works. We know what hormones run through the blood screaming “Eat!” We know which ones follow murmuring “Enough.” We know that it is relatively easy to repress the signal for enough.
The signal for hunger is much, much harder to turn off. We are omnivores with an oversized brain that requires a lot of energy. We are not specialized in how we get our food. Instead, we are always willing, always alert, always ready with a rock or digging stick. We are happy to snack all day long. Our love of fat and sugar has been associated with the same chemical responses that underlie our addictions to alcohol and drugs; this cycle of addiction may have developed to encourage eating behavior. We hunger easily, we find food, we get a chemical reward. Then we’re hungry again. That’s good, because the next time we look for food, we may not find it. Better keep eating while yon can.
It’s no wonder we are programmed to pound the table and demand dinner. The exceptions to this usually have extreme causes: infection, disease, terminal illness. For most of us, at regular times, the body shouts, “Feed me, damn it!” Deprived, the body sulks. The body exacts its petty revenge. Finally, with extraordinary cunning, and with something that approaches grace, the body turns to the business of the day, beginning what scientists call “the metabolic gymnastics” by which it can survive without food.
If you are healthy and well nourished, you can live this way for 60 days. You can live much longer if you have more fat to break down. The rhythms of your life will change: your heartbeat, your hormones, your thoughts. Your brain will switch to a new energy source. You will start consuming yourself, but precisely, carefully.
We are built to be hungry and we are built to withstand hunger. We know exactly what to do.
PARTLY OUT OF THE DESIRE TO SHARE THE FATE OF THEIR GENERATION, CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS BECAME MEDICAL GUINEA PIGS.
THE MEN BECAME IMPATIENT IF SERVICE WAS SLOW, AND BECAME POSSESSIVE ABOUT THEIR FOOD.
‘I FELT LIKE AN OLD MAN,’ SAID ONE PARTICIPANT, ‘AND PROBABLY LOOKED LIKE ONE.’
DURING TESTING, THE MEN LOST THEIR WILL FOR ACADEMIC PROBLEMS AND BECAME FAR MORE INTERESTED IN COOKBOOKS.
THOSE WHO DETERIORATED THE MOST WERE THE MOST SCORNED. ‘WE WERE NO LONGER POLITE.’
ONE MAN BEGAN TO CHEW UP TO 40 PACKS OF GUM A DAY, AND HE WAS CAUGHT STEALING MORE GUM HE COULD NO LONGER AFFORD.
SlX MONTHS HAD COME TO SEEM LIKE AN ETERNITY, WITH EACH DAY STRETCHING INFINITELY LONG.
EVEN WHEN THE EXPERIMENT ENDED, MOST MEN HAD SOME NEW FORM OF DISCOMFORT.
SHARMAN APT RUSSELL teaches writing at Western New Mexico University and at Antioch University in las Angeles. She is the author of several hooks, including An Obsession with Butterflies: Our Long Love Affair with a Singular Insect (2003). This essay is drawn from her forthcoming book. Hunger: An Unnatural History. Copyright 2005 by Shannon Apt Russell. Reprinted by arrangemeni with Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group (www:perseusbooks.com). All rights reserved.
Copyright Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Summer 2005
